Jared Petrenko knew North started quarters well, but didn't finish them so well. At the back of Brenton Sanderson's mind was more evidence in his late-surging team's favour - the Kangaroos had been losing more third and four quarters than they'd won.

He impressed upon his team the need to keep running, attacking, playing on and basically throwing caution to the wind. Yet no one could have envisioned their last-ditch abandon bringing such spectacular reward.

Graph showing the amount of time that North had the lead, compared to Adelaide.

Thirty-nine points down in the second quarter, still 29 adrift midway through the last. Four goals from the front eight minutes from time, three goals shy with four minutes left. Even the scoreboard couldn't keep up, so when Petrenko's volley with 16 seconds on the clock put Adelaide in front for the first time all game, many looked up and literally didn't believe it.

Advertisement

''I wasn't sure if it was right or wrong,'' said Sam Kerridge, the seventh-gamer whose six goals made him foremost among heroes in a visiting team that was full of them. ''I kind of had a thought that it hadn't changed when I kicked that goal.''

It hadn't, indicating North Melbourne still held an 11-point advantage. By now the Crows were bubbling with the adrenalin of all-out attack, and when Kerridge lumped a kick in hope to the hot spot, and it somehow spilled into Petrenko's path, his soccer into the stands had completed a heist that the Roos will long rue.

AFL Round 9, North Melbourne v Adelaide

''It's a bit embarrassing - when I ran over to the crowd at the end I almost had tears in my eyes, I was that worked up,'' said Petrenko, moved to have won the day in indigenous round, with the great Andrew McLeod's number on his back.

''It's an absolute honour to have played today, wore the colours, for the other boys at the club who didn't get a game today. I'm just proud as punch.''

Emotions of a far darker hue weighed heavily on North hearts, completing a sorry sequence of near-misses in 2013 that features defeats by four, three, two and now one point.

Having had the pedal to the metal all night, the Roos couldn't find the handbrake after Daniel Wells' goal 10 minutes into the last term. Adelaide conjured the last five of the game, and that was that.

''Sometimes the footy gods are smiling on you,'' Sanderson said. They have turned their back on North.

Petrenko thought the Roos had done enough to hold onto the ball, slow proceedings down and protect their buffer. He was being generous.

Sanderson agreed that this was another of those games that coaches hate, too free-wheeling in a way that denies the puppet masters control. Petrenko put it down to a modern trend.

''Footy's a lot like that at the moment - it's a real quick game, everyone's putting a lot of speed on the game. Momentum swings are massive at the moment. Thankfully we had the right swing at the right time.''

North's first blatant dip in intensity came in the second quarter, when its tackle count dropped from 22 in the first term to nine; 13 turnovers filled out the picture of a team that had begun to cruise.

The Kangaroos' start was driven by Lindsay Thomas, whose form in front of goal had recently had a little of the wobble of years past about it.

After four goals eight behinds in the past three games, he began by getting them in all shapes and sizes - a dash of wizardry for the first, slipping under Luke Brown's tackle and squeezing a kick between Brent Reilly and Dangerfield in the goal square; a second from a textbook lead-and-mark, with a cool, clear finish.

The third provided the mandatory injection of score-review angst, as Thomas marked running with the flight between goal and point posts, but had to wait while footage was viewed that could no more tell which side of the line he was on than a bird atop the Rialto trying to watch proceedings through the closed roof. ''Inconclusive vision'', perhaps the most annoying two words in the modern footy lexicon, cleared him to step around and goal.

The fourth fell into his lap as Drew Petrie nailed Bernie Vince at the top of the goalsquare and the ball, as if by Thomas' command, spilled into the North man's hands.

Brent Harvey swooped and the Roos were 39 points up less than five minutes into the second quarter.

The quarter finished as the game did, with five unbroken Adelaide goals. The Crows knew not to panic, that they were playing a team that struggles to finish the job. That they were right will cut North deep.

ROO BUNGLES

It is one thing to be briefly overwhelmed. It is another to help it happen. North Melbourne's 39-point lead early in the second quarter shrunk to 10 points by half-time, mostly because Adelaide began to play better, and make the ground look extremely spacious, but also because North kept giving the ball back to them. Thirteen turnovers for the quarter meant a lot of its own early work was wasted, and the Roos developed a habit for being quickly and easily scored against.

YOUNG CROW FLIES

Sam Kerridge played one game for Adelaide last season, and his was a less-than-ideal start: a second-half substitute in round three against Hawthorn, he debuted in what was the finals-bound Crows' heaviest loss for the year. Kerridge, the Crows' first-round pick in the 2011 draft, has played a more significant part this season, filling in for Nathan van Berlo as a run-with player while the captain was out suspended. Against North he got the chance to do some things of his own. His three third-term goals were sharp, classy and, in the latter instance, brave, coming after a mark taken as he ran back towards the goal. Goals four, five and six came in the final quarter, meaning that after producing last year's winner in Daniel Talia, the Crows have another youngster due Rising Star recognition. - EMMA QUAYLE